Jesse said, “Okay, Opal?”
Then ran off, almost as though something had been promised.
He got me thinking about Bud, I guess.
Maybe he got me thinking about him and I just thought I was thinking about Bud, but I didn’t know enough about him like I did about Bud.
Before Bud ran off you couldn’t be up to the von Hennigs’ very long without being aware of Bud Pegler.
There was a case of a whole family, with the help included, being in love with one boy.
If he wasn’t there in person, he was being talked about, or he was looking at you from out of a picture frame in her bedroom or her bathroom.
She’d pin his notes up on her cork bulletin board, too, for anyone to read, that’s what amazes me.
Sweet passion, beloved baby, you blow away my mind.
One of them said that, and she just put a pin in it and stuck it up there next to a torn stub from Seaville Cinema, souvenir of some movie they’d seen together.
I’d’ve buried a note like that in my sock drawer if anyone’d sent it to me, which isn’t a likelihood I’m going to lose any sleep over.
I think I lost a lot of sleep imagining being in her shoes, know I did. One time I put on one of her cashmere sweaters, then crossed my arms across my chest and felt the sleeves with my fingers, thinking of him holding her, and the softness he touched. Sometimes he began his notes: Dear soft, green-eyed lover, sometimes just Seal, soft Seal.
Seems in that house when he wasn’t there it stopped breathing until he was. You’d hear Mrs. von Hennig called out, “What time’s Bud coming by, honey?” Hear Seal’s father telling her, “When Bud comes, I want to show him something, sweetheart.”
Even the cook, who looked mean enough to star in a horror show, said she was making cinnamon rolls for Bud, or frosting a cake with coconut because Bud loved coconut.
In my time I’ve had daydreams and night dreams of Bud. Then when he took off they stopped some until Jesse showed up in my life.
Then in some of my daydreams Jesse said everything Bud would say, which had to be the most secret part of my whole existence. No one even guessed, I know that much.
Afternoons after school I’d take my pillow off my bed, go sit in my chair looking out my window, thinking of summer coming with the pillow hugged against my body.
I’d think of the last week in July. I’d think of The Last Dance.
You would have all probably had a good laugh at the idea of Opal Ringer dreaming about going to that dumb dance of yours, but I was that human.
I’d seen V. Chicken dressing for it often enough, felt the excitement up there in their house those hot days of summer getting ready for the big event.
It is like you to have something called The Last Dance in the middle of summer, as though you really know no dance you dance will ever be the last one. There will always be another dance for you.
In my daydreams there was Jesse then, or Bud again, one of them crooking his arm out to touch my fingers to, holding on lightly, on my way with one of them to the lawn of St. Luke’s Church, to The Ladies’ Association of Seaville Township’s big dance of the year. A summer’s night, under the stars with the smell of honeysuckle from the bushes on the church grounds, moon coming up and me wearing my favorite color, which is lemon yellow.
Bud saying, “Opal, you’ve got real pretty eyes, and someday—”
Jesse saying, “We’re P.K’s, sweet passion, beloved baby.”
The next time Diane-Young Cheek came into view was right across our living room on the fourteen-inch screen of our Sears Sensor Touch TV.
School’d been out a week, and I still didn’t have a full-time summer job, just part-time stuff, helping out at the von Hennigs’, waitressing here and there weekends.
This was on a Sunday, about a half hour after the noon whistle blew.
Mum was out in the kitchen cutting up carrot for a chicken-in-the-pot, in her own little world, humming, “Remember Whose Child You Are,” barefoot.
Daddy was counting that morning’s offering from The Hand over on the card table, while Bobby John read the comics.
Daddy, Bobby John, and I had finished watching Guy Pegler’s sermon, which he called “Chopsticks.”
He told how these folks went to a Chinese banquet, and when they took up their chopsticks to get at their meal, they couldn’t reach the food in front of them because the chopsticks were too long.
The reason for that was everyone was supposed to feed the person across from them. “Feed each other in life!” Guy Pegler shouted out. “Give and you shall receive!”
It’s Up to You was offering little gold chopsticks for charms that week, too.
Bobby John said he was waiting for the P.S., looking from the comics to the TV.
Bobby John said, “Not many people I know can even handle chopsticks.”
“I wouldn’t like to be waiting for any food you was going to be passing across the table to me on chopsticks,” Daddy told him.
“You ever tried to pick up chop suey with them things?” said Bobby John.
“Well, it’s a good sermon all the same,” said Daddy. “You can’t knock that sermon any.”
“It’s a good sermon if you’re Chinese,” said Bobby John.
“It’s a good sermon,” Daddy said.
Bobby John said, “You want me to help count up the offering?”
“This offering’s not going to take two of us to count,” said Daddy. “The cat could count this offering. … I think I’ll go in my room to pray.”
“Wait for the P.S., Daddy,” said Bobby John. “Don’t turn off the TV yet.”
Mum shouted in to count the offering after dinner. “You’re going to lose your appetite, Royal.”
“Be better if we all lost our appetites with this slim an offering,” said Daddy.
While The Challenge Choir sang “The World Needs a
